Two spatial aspects of poverty are noteworthy. Firstly, poverty in Orissa is overwhelmingly a rural phenomenon. Thus, in 1987-88, the share of urban poor in the total number of poor in Orissa was 9.7 per cent, the lowest among all the major states of India except Assam. In fact, there were as many as seven major states in India where the incidence of urban poverty was lower than that of Orissa (namely, 37.4 per cent), but the proportion of urban poor to total number of poor was much higher in these states.Second, there are very significant regional differences in the incidence of poverty within Orissa. This is brought out by the NSS region-wise estimates of poverty.The rural poverty ratio in the southern region is more than two and half times that of the coastal region and the ratio in the northern region more than one and half time that of the coastal region. These regional differences in the incidence of poverty capture differences in the degree of economic deprivation of different ethnic groups and their spatial concentration. Thus, the incidence of poverty among Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) population in the southern and northern region is very high — it is in these regions that 88.56 per cent of the state’s ST population and 46.23 per cent of the state’s SC population reside.In the case of the rural ST population, the incidence of poverty in Orissa, at 71.51 per cent (’93-’94), was the highest among the 16 major states of India. It was 51.96 per cent for All India and, significantly, for MP (which has the highest concentration of tribal population followed by Orissa among the major states), the incidence of poverty was 56.90 per cent.Of particular concern is the fact that it is only in the coastal region of the state that the rural poverty ratio has steadily and significantly declined between ’83-’84 and ’99-’00. This has happened to a lesser extent in the northern region, whereas in the southern region, the poverty ratio has been fluctuating around a high average value.One factor that may partly explain the persistence of a very high incidence of poverty in the southern region of Orissa is the pattern of distribution of the poor and non-poor around the poverty line. The latest available data. from which it can be inferred that a little more than 40 per cent of the poor belong to the category of ‘very poor’, ie, those who are below three-fourths of the poverty line. Again, amongst the non-poor, nearly 55 per cent are within one and half times above the poverty line.Differences in the pattern of distribution of the poor as observed above are, therefore, reflected in differences in the depth, intensity, and severity of poverty as measured by the rural poverty gap and squared poverty gap. Thus, the intensity of poverty in the southern region of Orissa is almost twice as high as it is in the coastal and northern regions.Excerpted from ‘Human Development Report 2004: Orissa’, Government of Orissa
